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Authors: Keith Francis Strohm - (ebook by Flandrel,Undead)

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BOOK: The Tomb of Horrors
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“More ale!” Kaerion bellowed at the portly barkeep. “And
bring along a few more fingers of that damned Dragons Breath. Packs a fine kick,
it does.” He slammed down his mug on the chipped wooden bar and drew his other
hand across his mouth.

The common area of the Men O’Steel tavern was packed with
bodies, hard drinkers all of them. Humans, elves, and even a few dwarves jostled
and joked, drank and swore in its dim-lit confines—though Kaerion noticed that
no one let their hands stray too far from their weapons. Dirty rushes covered
the floor and serving maids swooped from table to table, collecting coins and
absently swatting away roaming hands and pinching fingers. Somewhere off in a
corner, a minstrel swept swift fingers across the strings of an instrument.

Kaerion turned back to his drink, disgusted. Only a few
moments later, the barkeep deposited two more mugs of dark ale and three small
cups filled with a brownish liquid. He sniffed the cups, satisfied by the smoky
scent that wafted up. Holding up his first cup, he saluted an elf, who had just
tied the beard of a dwarf to the cheap wooden table upon which he rested his
head, completely passed out. The elf gave a quick smile in return, and Kaerion
could not help but think of his own companion. The thought forced him to drain
the cup of its contents in one gulp.

The drink filled his belly with the heat of a small fireball.
The fiery sensation spread throughout his body, until he felt his very blood
boil. He let out a deep bellyful of air, amazed at how the drinks flavor
lingered on mouth and tongue. The din of the tavern and the warmth provided by
ale and liquor had combined to lift the tension of today’s events. His head swam
peacefully in a warm sea of alcohol.

Until now.

Damn him to the Abyss, Kaerion thought acidly, recalling his
meeting with Gerwyth just a few hours ago. He had stormed out of the Platinum
Shield and headed for the nearest tavern, intent on getting himself utterly and
completely drunk. He had been well on his way when the elf walked in, fresh from
his meeting with the wrinkled old mage.

Ten years! Ten long years they had traveled together and
fought side by side. Kaerion felt betrayed. Gerwyth should have told him what he
was planning long before today. He had even said that very thing to the blasted
elf. His companion had mumbled back something about friendship, honor, and duty.

Words.

They were simply words to him now. Once he had understood
their meaning, had embodied them with his life. But looking back across the hard
trail of choices he’d made, he could not quite recall
that
man. It was as
a fading memory, nothing more than a dream.

It wasn’t the journey itself that was making Kaerion angry,
though the gods know he wouldn’t look forward to crawling through a steaming
swamp in search of an ancient tomb, and it wasn’t even the presence of the
Heironean priest—even if the pain and shock of that meeting still lingered. It
was the fact that Gerwyth hadn’t filled him in on the whole truth regarding
their next job.

Kaerion had known few people he could depend on after… his
thoughts hesitated a moment, still afraid to go
there…
after the god
had pronounced judgment. Embittered and angry, Kaerion had spent a few years
wandering from city to city, selling his sword where he could, keeping himself
in food and drink. Mostly drink. It wasn’t until he had met Gerwyth—at
swordpoint, no less—that he had felt comfortable enough to open himself up to
the possibility of friendship. Over the course of several years, he had grown to
trust the elf implicitly. They were shield mates and brothers. Inseparable.

Or so he had thought.

Kaerion broke from his painful reverie, only to discover that
he had finished his drinks. He was about to order a few more, when he felt a
light tap on his shoulder. “What?” he slurred as he spun around.

The figure standing before him appeared hazy and indistinct.
It took a few moments for Kaerion to realize that the figure was fine. He rubbed
his eyes a few times and willed them to focus. After a few more moments, the
blurred shape resolved itself into the form of a familiar half-elf face.
Majandra, he remembered the bard’s name.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

He shrugged, though the movement cost him some effort. He’d
lost track of how much he’d had to drink tonight. “It’s your country,” he
replied. Something about his reply must have struck him as funny, because he
found himself laughing right after he had spoken.

He caught the quick frown on Majandra’s face, but the bard
did not reply. Instead, she sat down next to him and ordered ale from the
barkeep.

“What are you having?” she asked in a neutral tone.

“A really bad day,” Kaerion found himself replying. When the
bard said nothing, he pursed his lips and then decided to be polite. “I’ll take
an ale.”

She relayed his order and then turned back to face him. He
wondered why he hadn’t noticed her eyes before. Wide and slightly slanted, they
reflected the dim light of the tavern like twin pools of gold.

“You think us foolish, don’t you?” the bard’s voice cut
through his ale-induced wanderings. He blinked and turned as much of his full
attention as he was able back to her.

He found himself shaking his head. “Don’t think yer foolish,”
he said, forcing his now-sluggish tongue to function. But truly, he didn’t know
what he really thought—about Majandra and the mission she and her friends wanted
to undertake, or about Gerwyth.

“Then why do you carry around such anger?” she asked in a
casual tone, but Kaerion could feel a quiet intensity from her.

All at once, he felt tired. Tired of carrying around anger
and pain. Just once, it would be nice to share his burden with someone else. To
tell someone else the things that he hadn’t even told Gerwyth.

She stared at him, eyes alight with intelligence, red hair
flaming around her softly angled face. She was beautiful. Beautiful and
interested. Kaerion felt his own heart soften beneath the soulful glance she was
giving him.

He started to talk, to unburden himself when Majandra pitched
forward for a moment.

“Hey!” she shouted at the lout who had tried to stagger past
her, but obviously misjudged his way. “Watch where you’re going.”

The drunk muttered something incomprehensible under his
breath and started to weave his way past the bard. Instinct, not quite dulled by
the wash of alcohol in Kaerion’s system, sent an alarm ringing through the haze
that had enveloped his mind. His hand shot out and caught the offending drunk by
his stained shirt.

“Hey,” the man complained in a loud voice, “let go of me you
crazy bastard!”

Several of the taverns patrons turned their attention to the
happenings, and Kaerion could hear the mumbled stirrings of the crowd.

“Kaerion,” the bard exclaimed, “what are you doing?”

The fighter kept his grip on the drunk’s shirt. “Yer gold
pouch,” he managed to say without too much slurring.

Majandra stared for a moment without comprehending, but
checked her belt when she realized his meaning. Her eyes flew wide when she
discovered that the drunk had stolen her coin pouch.

“You little—” she started to shout, but the thief grabbed a
half-empty mug of beer and threw it at Kaerion.

Caught off guard, Kaerion let go of his prisoner as the thick
liquid stung his eyes. Blinded by ale and not a fair bit of rage, he threw a
wild punch, hoping to stun the sneaky bastard before he had a chance to run
away. His fist connected solidly and he heard a heavy thud along with the
shattering of crockery.

It wasn’t until he had cleared away the last vestiges of ale
from his eyes that Kaerion realized what had happened. Three angry men stood
around the remains of a wooden table. A fourth man, clearly not the cutpurse he
was after, lay dazed atop the splintered wood.

There was a moment of silence before all hell broke loose.
Someone threw a bottle that shattered against the wooden bar, and the tavern
erupted into violence. The three men advanced on Kaerion, brows furrowed in
anger. All around him he could hear the telltale shouts and thuds of brawling
fighters.

Kaerion tried to sidestep the first man, who threw a punch at
his midsection, but ale-dulled reflexes would not respond. Breath whuffed out of
him as the man’s blow struck him solidly. It wasn’t until the third kick to his
head that Kaerion realized he’d been knocked down. Dimly, he heard Majandra’s
voice protesting and then a bright flash of light. The repeated blows to his
head stopped for a moment, and Kaerion struggled to his feet.

All around him, tight circles of men and women fought with
each other. In the wild chaos, he could make out his three assailants, each
crumpled to the floor clutching their eyes. He searched for Majandra and was
relieved to find her calmly sitting on the bar and watching the exchange.

He was about to speak with her when a thick-nosed man with a
large circle of metal pushed through his left ear grabbed him by the shoulder.
Kaerion spun around and blocked an incoming punch with a muscular forearm. He
ducked another wild swing, but felt the floor spin beneath him. Overbalanced,
Kaerion hit the ground. Desperately, he kicked out at his attacker, struck solid
bone, and raised himself, once again, to his feet. No attack came.

When he looked around, he saw his opponent curled up on the
ground, holding the jagged edge of his shattered bone as it protruded brutally
from his leg.

“Kaerion, look out!” Majandra shouted from her vantage point
by the bar.

Warned of an impending attack, Kaerion brought up both arms.
The movement saved him from the full crushing force of the chair, which broke as
it struck him from the side. Dazed, Kaerion could do nothing as two men leapt
upon him and brought him crashing to the ground. Instinctively, he curled into a
ball, warding off as many blows as possible, but even he could not delay the
inevitable. He caught sight of the bottle descending upon his head before
darkness claimed him.

 

* * *

 

Terys Van stood with arms folded, surveying the damage in the
tavern’s common room. Wooden tables and chairs lay overturned or smashed
Splinters of wood and broken shards of glass and crockery crunched under the
booted tread of his guardsmen. Here and there, he spotted small clumps of
bloodied rushes, and the occasional tooth. The stench of stale beer and cheap
smoke mingled with the sour musk of sweat, producing the familiar smell of
desperation.

Fourteen years as a sentinel in the city watch, however, had
pretty much inured him to the darker and more violent aspects of life in Rel
Mord. So it was with a somewhat bored nod of his head that Terys acknowledged
the young guardswoman who stood at attention to his left, waiting to offer her
report.

“Typical bar fight, sir,” the smartly uniformed guard spoke
at his signal. “No deaths. Three wounded seriously. The clerics are seeing to
those. They’ll be ready to meet the king’s judgment. The rest are being escorted
to the prison now.”

“Good work,” he responded. The entire investigation had been
quick and efficient. The sentinel was calculating the time it would take him to
stamp the paperwork through and head home for the night when he noticed the
guardswoman still standing stiffly to his side.

“What is it, Kendra?” he snapped. He was in no mood for
complications.

“Sir,” the young guard straightened at her commander’s tone,
“several witnesses identified the one who started the fight.”

She pointed to a spot near the bar, where a bear of a man
leaned heavily against the wall, arms bound behind his back. Blood covered his
tunic, and even from his position, Terys could make out an angry bruise
beginning to blossom on one side of his face.

“I see,” he said, dismissing the guardswoman with a sharp
wave of his hand. “I’ll handle it from here.”

“But, sir,” Kendra called out, “I think—”

Another wave of his hand silenced the protesting guard. “I
said that I would take it from here, Corporal.” He sent her to deal with the
proprietor of the tavern, who was complaining loudly about the loss to his
business.

The prisoner looked up as he approached, and Terys’ steps
faltered for just a moment. The man’s face was handsome enough, even with the
rapidly deepening bruise, but his eyes—they were hard eyes, steel blue and
penetrating. The eyes of a killer.

The guard stopped a few feet from the sulking prisoner,
leaving enough room to draw his sword should the need arise. The man was still
drunk, evidenced by his slightly swaying posture and his rapid, irregular
breath, but there was no reason to leave himself completely vulnerable should
the man’s anger overcome his common sense.

Terys ran calloused fingers across his goatee, in a move
calculated to disguise his own tension. He regarded the prisoner briefly, hoping
that the interrogation would move along quickly so that he could finish up for
the night, but the man’s flat gaze revealed nothing.

Puzzled, he drew breath to speak but was cut off by the sound
of a feminine voice. “There you are, Captain. I’m glad to see you’ve finally
arrived.”

Terys flinched. The voice was rich and textured, almost
sultry, but even he could hear the biting tone of self-conscious authority mixed
with reflexive disdain. Noble, he thought. No doubt slumming the Poor Quarter,
looking for some lowborn excitement before she returned to the trying world of
servants and sumptuous meals. It wasn’t that uncommon. He just wished it had
happened on someone else’s watch.

He turned to face the source of the voice, hoping that his
face disguised the frustration he was feeling, and caught his breath. Before him
stood one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She smiled gracefully,
throwing exquisite features into stunning relief, and all at once he felt an
ungainly fool. It wasn’t until he gazed at the gold ring and matching medallion,
etched with the long-antlered stag, symbol of House Damar, that he realized just
how complicated his evening had become.

BOOK: The Tomb of Horrors
6.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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